Methods and semifinished products for producing an inlay of the type cited at the beginning are well-known and are regularly used for producing a precursor product of chip cards, bank cards, access control cards, passport documents, or the like. The production of inlays and/or cards of this type is typically performed by hot lamination, i.e., various plastic layers are compressed with electronic components situated interposed and are bonded to one another at a relatively high temperature. The hot lamination is often applied both for producing an inlay and also for producing a card. In the event of the integration of multiple electronic components in an inlay and/or a card, such as displays, LEDs, miniature loudspeakers, batteries, etc., the hot lamination technology has proven to be disadvantageous. The incorporated components are partially temperature-sensitive and are not resistant to the typical hot lamination temperatures, which may be up to 150° C. The electronic components may also have a complex geometry, so that it is difficult to fit these components in a layered composite having punched windows for accommodating the components.
Production methods which avoid the above-mentioned disadvantages are so-called “cold lamination”, in which the electronic components are cast between two layers using a cold-curing filler material, and so-called “warm lamination”, in which adhesive material is caused to cure between layers at comparatively low temperatures.
An array of production variants of these methods for producing an inlay and/or a card are thus known from the prior art. In the known methods, for example, a second positioning layer is laid as a positioning aid on one layer of a card, this second layer having recesses which correspond to the geometric shapes of electronic components to be inserted. After the components and the second layer are cast in a filler material, a third layer is applied at a defined distance which determines the thickness of the card before curing of the filler material. The positioning layer may, inter alia, comprise a porous material so that the filler material penetrates into the positioning layer. The positioning layer may also be essentially completely enclosed by the filler material and may form an element which stabilizes the card. This known method from the prior art is distinguished in that the positioning layer is compressed under pressure with the filler material interposed and the components. In certain circumstances, a pressure force which damages the components is exerted on the electronic components in this case. Precise positioning of all components within a middle layer implemented from filler material may also only be determined with difficulty in a method of this type. The components may be displaced both in the horizontal and also the vertical directions in an undesired manner by the application of filler material and/or the compression. This is especially probable and undesirable in particular if electronic components having different geometric shapes are used simultaneously, such as a coil antenna or a display.